The 2021 Sociando-Mallet has turned out nicely in bottle, offering up aromas of dark berries and cassis mingled with hints of cigar wrapper and pencil lead. It is medium to full-bodied, fleshy and seamless, with impressive concentration for the vintage, sweet tannins, integrated acids and a penetrating finish.

Offering up aromas of dark berries, licorice, cigar wrapper and loamy soil, the 2021 Sociando-Mallet is medium to full-bodied, bright and concentrated, with an impressively layered core of fruit, tangy acids and a long, saline finish. The blend is 54% Cabernet Sauvignon, 44% Merlot and 2% Cabernet Franc, with late-harvested Cabernet Sauvignon, picked through to October 14, providing the heart of the wine. Sociando-Mallet has long been a favorite of Bordeaux insiders, and it's easy to understand why. Occupying the same terrace of Gunzian gravel that one finds at estates such as Montrose, L?oville-Las Cases and Latour, and planted at a high density of 8,333 vines per hectare, it's located just to the north of Saint-Est?phe, right on the banks of the Gironde. That location, delivering temperatures some two to three degrees Celsius cooler than Margaux to the south, combined with clay subsoils, means that this estate invariably delivers especially fine performances in warm, dry vintages (the 2003 is showing beautifully today, for example). And although it wasn't planted in 1855, and thus isn't a classified growth, Sociando-Mallet's performance in blind tastings tells its own story. Director Fran?ois Hugueniot told me that the estate benefited from negligible rainfall in early October, so he was able to wait to pick fully ripe Cabernet Sauvignon. In the winery, he took pains with his Merlot lots to extract gently, but he opted for a more classic vinification for the riper Cabernet.